Hello

Well, I think I have finally hit a point where I'm afraid Minti and I will (almost) part ways. When the site starte, I must confess to having been addicted. My boy was only a few months old and I had spare time a couple of days a week whilst my daughter was at nursery to see what was going on. Now, I have a lovely, calm 3 1/2 yr old and an almost 2 yr old who thinks nothing of climbing anything and falling off most things (caught him at the top of a 6ft high gate the other day, thinking he was safe in the garden as he couldn't reach the latch...!)

I am currently trying to learn two new computer systems, a new piece of legislation and brush up on my First Aid to teach these four courses, all starting in October. I have also just started my second year in a degree course in education. Added to that, I am planning to try and get out responding for First Aid emergencies one evening a week. I'm not sure where my free time is right now. I have hit the stage where I am buying course books in audible format to catch up on research whilst driving. Not ideal.

So, what I wanted to say is that I am this evening going to amend my preferences so that I don't get daily updates. I am then going to resign from many of the groups I am a member of. I say this not to get any messages to convince me otherwise, but purely so that friends I have met here and value know why I am not around.

I think that Minti is a valuable and helpful resource and I still recommend it to parents I know. I wish everyone here the continues benefit of the combined wisdom and experience of all the members. I know that I will stay a member so that I have a reference point for my next fix (and let's face it, with parenting there are many!) but without the emails I probably won't be logging on so often.

So, good luck everyone and hope that you and your family stay well. I will try and drop people a line but apologise if I don't manage it - next assignment due very soon!

Well, life has been quite hectic lately (am I just so disorganised that this is all it ever seems to be?) Have had three weeks of full time work as I have had to go on a couple of courses - an "Advanced Trainer Development" course (fascinating) and a "First Aid Trainer and Assessor" course (I teach First Aid at work and needed a refresher). Have also just qualified as a Neighbourhood First Responder - a volunteer to go out and cover calls when the ambulance is struggling to get there. Was convinced to go on call almost straight away to buddy up with someone who has been doing it for a while. This was last night.

Anyway, first call came in when I was just in the process of putting Nyle to bed. Had to dump the poor boy in the cot, grab the phone and then take details of the call whilst kissing him goodnight and turning the nightlight and music on. First job was a ruptured peptic ulcer and we were beaten by the ambulance, so stood down. Next job (about an hour later) was an 87yr old woman who had just come home from hospital that day and fallen at home. Paramedic arrived on his own and we stayed to help (I respond with someone else - we both charge out from our homes when we get a call). Anyway, the paramedic ran tests and she clearly had a chest infection, but had had her absolute fill of hospitals and refused any further help. Haven't met such a stubborn so and so for a long time. Hope she and her equally old and fragile husband are coping well.

Got home about 1015pm and settled on the bed with a cup of tea to watch some tv. Nick popped downstairs for some reason and called up to say that my mobile was ringing. Despite the fact that we had booked off ages ago, the ambulance control had phoned to say that there was a 1-month old, not breathing, about 8 miles away - could we go? The nearest ambulance was some time away, so of course I grabbed my shoes and hurtled out. My buddy had told me the road name but said he couldn't find it on the map. I had left the map book in the car, so looked it up in the index, found the page, but no road. Ran back in to grab the laptop and look up multimap. Found address (time ticking by...) and ran back out. Drove off, decided red lights might just have to apply to other people and phoned my buddy en route. He had now found out where the road was and had the address "flats 1 - 5". Flats 1-5? WHERE?

Fortunately, ambualnce (with their "blues and twos") had got there first and were whisking the little girl off to hospital. Cause? No idea. Outcome? No idea, but boy do I hope it was a good one. Hopefully we will get updated at some time. Incidentally, the map book had the index out by about two pages, so that's worrying.

Calls like that (which we shouldn't have been sent to as we are only there for adults, not kids) make me realise the massive need for the scheme. Imagine, an ambulance must have taken at least 10 minutes to get to that call. Please, whatever you do as a parent, make sure that you are confident in your resuscitation skills. Get on a course. Do something so that if you are ever, God forbid, in such a terrible situation, you have some idea about what to do. I am not purely altruistic. The scheme is teaching me more and more first aid so that I can look after my family and friends, alongside helping others. I read a statistic:

"70% of people who are carrying out resuscitation techniques are doing so on family and friends."

This isn't to scare you. This is to make you think and hopefully act. I hope you never have to use the skills you learn, but equally hope you never have to wish you had learnt those skills but decided to use your time and money on something else...

Well, this seems to be about the first time I have really had a chance to sit down and catch up a little bit, although I feel like I need DAYS and DAYS to try and see all the people that have joined since I drifted away, and read just a few of the articles.

Life is ticking along a pace for me. I went back to work three weeks ago and am still trying to find my feet. It is really strange returning after maternity leave as someone else has been doing my job (and she covered for me last maternity leave too) and my return means she is out of a job. I don't feel too bad about that in that if I hadn't gone off, she wouldn't have had the job at all, but it is a shame she has to leave. Feeling sorry for myself, it is also weird feeling like everyone is more sad to see her go than they are pleased that I am back. I wonder if she did a better job than me, and whether everyone would have preferred her to stay. Perhaps this is just paranoia on the part of someone feeling a little lost after more than a year off!

I am out two nights a week as I have kept up with Pilates and also am doing a 10 week First Aid course so that I can be a "First Responder" - a volunteer who does time on-call for emergency medical situations that an ambulance can't get to straight away. I don't know how much time on-call I will manage as my other half is also regularly on-call for work, but I guess anything is better than nothing. So, in my remaining evenings, I try to fit in the chores and helping with the decorating which is going ainfully slowly! Never mind, we are getting there.

I just wanted to say "Hi!" to my Minti friends - Izzy, EF, AllyP, Tink and all the others who are kind enough to pop in to my Minti lounge to post nice messages. I do think about you all but only seem to pop in for the very odd five minutes when something I have seen in the daily email has really got my curiosity going! I apologise for not writing back to people, keeping up with friends or joining groups - I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed so just log out again and go and do some tidying! I hope everything is going well with you all, esp. Izzy and your mammoth pregnancy - good luck with the twins. Wow!

Chele - hope you are also well and will catch up with you soon, too, I hope.

Well. Hope you are all having a great time and life is being easy on you. Nyle and Leala are doing really well at nursery and have settled brilliantly, which is such a relief. Nyle is walking and climbing like a mad thing (comment from nursery - "I have never seen a child climb on and fall off so many toys") and Leala is just getting smarter by the day (biased - me??). Love em! My Mum and Dad are on their mega, 10-week trip round Australia (look out for them in the Sydney area!) and so no babysitters until they get back in April, so maybe I will find the time to be on here after all.

Keep well and speak soon. Love Helen

Doesn't the time just fly past.

This evening, just before his bedtime, Nyle was playing in our bedroom and went over to a bookcase. He started pulling a book off the shelf, something he doesn't do, and managed to get one out and throw it on the floor. I then noticed it was "Everything You Need to Know...About Baby's First Year." Do you think he knows more than he is letting on? Spooky!

to say "Hi" to everyone.

Life is still madly manic around here. Got home from holiday only for Leala to be diagnosed with chicken pox (I had a sneaky susicion, but on the day we were coming home, I took her in to a chemist who said it was the sun, so we clung on to that). I think a fair few people who were on the plane might be a bit miffed with me. Whoops.

Leala did cruise through CP with no major problems. Apart from the spots and a couple of nights when she woke up for a bath (which was a bit of a problem as we didn't have heating or hot water, so I had to carry her down the road to mym parent's house at midnight...), you wouldn't have known she was ill.

So, the next week and a half after she got over it, we were stuck pretty much indoors waiting for Nyle to go down with it. We were lucky enough to have a couple of friends who were happy to visit, but apart from that we have been getting pretty bored. Nyle finally got spots on Tuesday (16 days after he would have been infected) and has been a bit of a grouch, but not too bad, ever since. In fact, I have had two brilliant night's sleep out of the last three - 8 1/2 hours last night, unbroken! First time in about a year and a half!

This evening, though, when I undressed him for his bath, I noticed one of the spots on his tummy, which has been covered up all day, was really nasty looking. It was large (bigger than a 50p coin, if that means anything to non-UKers) and looked wrong. I phoned the local health service and was advised to get him to see a doctor. So, just before 8pm I had to load both kids into the car for our appointment, because Nick had gone out for the evening before this blew up. Parked in the hospital car park, only to realise later that I had no money to get the car out later. The Dr was very helpful and eventually prescribed a topical antibiotic so that I don't need to dose him up. Fortunately, I am lucky enough to have a friend who lives directly opposite the exit to the car park, so she gave me the cash to get out, and I finally got the kids to bed at 9pm. Phew.

So, the kitchen people come to start fitting the kitchen on Monday (yippppeeee!) and hopefully in a couple of weeks the house might be close to resembling normality. Nyle's birthday is next Thursday so we will have to try and arrange a family get together at my Mother-in-law's (well, she would be MIL if I was married...) because there is no way we could invite people here, but at least he should be mostly spot free by then, poor lad.

So, the kids are doing ok, the house is nearly finished, and I will soon be able to have more than just our bedroom to camp out and eat in. Can't wait! Have also been eBaying like mad to get rid of some of the stuff I have been storing, so have made some cash there, too. All coming together quite well, but where do the days go?

Hope everyone else is doing well and I promise to catch up properly, but probably not until January. See you then!

Hello to all my Minti friends. I have just realised how long ago it was that I spent any time on here, and I have to admit that it has been ages. At the moment, I tend to look at my daily watch list and maybe look a little further, but that is about it. In fact, I have spent about as much time online in the last two months as I used to spend in a day!

The building work is progressing and finally looking close to finishing, thank goodness. We haven't had the use of our living room for about a fortnight, and I am so looking forward to sitting on a comfortable chair again (although I will need to get all the dust off it first - the builders were a bit casual when it came to covering things up...).

Nyle and Leala are doing great. Nyle has his first word (clap, which sounds more like cla.) and is so, so close to walking. He has been having great fun pushing his sister up and down the kitchen with her standing in the tray of the baby walker. He is going to cause me so much grief as he gets older. Just the other day he managed to fall on his head twice before even 9am. He is non-stop active but without the brains to go with it, bless him! He is great going up stairs but then tries to crawl down head first. Oh dear.

Leala has now bitten the bullet as far as potty training is going. Wednesday morning when Nick was trying to get her dressed, she kicked him away saying "No pull ups! Pants!". And that was it. She has been ready for months, but I have been putting it off until Nyle was older. Well, it is now Monday evening and apart from a tiny accident Wednesday, another Friday, that has been it. She isn't keen on the idea of a poo in a potty, so that will be a challenge (she knows what to do just doesn't want to do it), but she is either waiting for bed time when she does get a nappy or asks for a pull up in advance. I am so proud of her. Today I kept asking her if she needed a pee and she would sit on the potty if I made her but do nothing. When she was ready, she asked for the potty and performed. What a girl!

Off on holiday to Tenerife for a fortnight next Tuesday (Halloween) and between now and then we need to rip out the rest of the kitchen, strip the tiles off the walls and pack. Easy! When we get back, the builders should have finished all the plastering and everything (Dad is keeping an eye on them) and then the kitchen fitters start 4/12, probably for less than two weeks. So, will need to eat down at Mum and Dad's but will probably still all sleep here. Should be interesting...

So, busy bisy for another month or so, and then the run up to Christmas, then back to work 15/1. I hate to think, but I bet time will really fly.

I apologise to all that I owe emails to. I hate to accept a friend request and not reply, so I am sorry that I haven't done that for my latest friends. Hopefully I will catch up in my lunch breaks next year!

Best wishes to everyone.

1. You should never leave a baby's face unwiped after a breakfast of Weetabix. That stuff dries like quick-drying cement in the time it takes to make six cups of coffee for the builders (yep, they are still here). At least with builders around, I could get hold of sand-blasting equipment because an industrial strength baby wipe was just not doing it.
2. If you tread on a Cheerio, it looks absolutely fine until you try and pick it up...
3. The piece of skin that attaches your top lip to your gum is called your "frenulum". When a madly crawling baby falls over with a cup in their mouth, the frenulum may just tear, causing screaming and a fair amount of blood. Advice - do not let a small child crawl around with a cup. Oh, breast feeding quickly helps in this situation (and in all bumps and scrapes) but you do end up looking like you have been savaged afterwards.
4. Leala is 30 months (in a few days) and weighs 22lbs 12ozs (clothed with nappy). Nyle is 10 months old and weighs 22lbs 6ozs (naked). So, in her official chart she beats him by 6 ozs, but I think that the truth is little brother will very, very soon be big brother (if he isn't already). As a saving grace, she is 6cms taller (a huge 82cm to his 76cm) and has managed to claw her way up to the 2nd centile, just. Nyle is cruising along on the 91st.
5. It isn't fun when a baby who had got in to a habit of waking just once decides he wants to feed five times in one night, and his sister decides that 6am is waking up time. Especially when we were just finishing stripping woodchip paper off the ceilings at 11pm and got to bed at 1.30am.

That's about it! Building work is carrying on a pace and there are dust sheets, which seem largely ineffective, all over the place. If only the builders were kind enough to shake them outside after a day's work, the dust might stay outside. Ho hum. At least I have my Roomba Minti to save me - life would have been hellish without him!

Waiting for ice cream...

Well, after a month or so of building, the builders are all ready to start "breaking through" tomorrow... Oh, how exciting! They have taken down the outer skin of bricks and the inner skin will be coming down upstairs tomorrow. That means that we will be able to see exactly the size of our new bedroom. The downside is that there has been dust and plaster all over the house today. I came home after lunch to find that there was nowhere safe to sit with the kids. I have rigged up a barrier downstairs to stop them getting at the supports holding the ceiling up (not as drastic as it sounds) and as soon as they have finished upstairs at least we will have a whole area for them to toddle about in, but that is probably a few days away. Will just have to try and stay out as much as possible!

Nick has just dropped a glass on the kitchen floor and it has smashed sending shards all over the place. It is nice to be able to set Minti on the task in a minute! We have swept the floor and Minti should do a good job to be on the safe side. I love my Roomba!

I have been meaning to post this photo for a while as I think it is funny. Leala was out in the garden painting at the table when Nyle crawled over and stood up underneath. This photo is of him looking up shot through the gaps in the table...